Author: Jacob, Catharine
Biography:
by
Ragaz, Sharon (SR)
JACOB, Catharine, formerly Kunnison (1780-1847: ancestry.co.uk)
She was born on 20 Jan. 1780 at Southampton, Hampshire, the youngest child of James Kunnison, a merchant, and his wife Hannah Hollis. She was baptised at St. Michael's, Southampton, on 22 Jan. Her father operated variously as a wine merchant and a linen and woollen merchant; he went bankrupt several times. In 1790 he sold his premises in Southampton and moved first to London and later to Edinburgh. He was trading as a merchant in Edinburgh in 1797 and Jacob's poems indicate that the family lived there for several years. The poems also refer to a relationship she had with a W. M. who died. On 16 Sept. 1814 she married William (Nassau?) Jacob of Rotherhithe, Surrey, at St. Mary's, Rotherhithe. In 1815 they had a daughter, Williamena Nassau Jacob, who lived just eight weeks and was buried on 8 Aug. 1815 at St. Botoloph, Aldgate; she is commemorated in one of Jacob's poems. They do not seem to have had other children. We learn from several poems that William Jacob served in the Royal Navy and was present at the Siege of Tarragona in 1813. Jacob may have been the woman of that name who is recorded in the 1841 Census as living alone with a servant in Andover, north of Southampton. If so she died of apoplexy on 26 Nov. 1847 and was buried at Monxton, Andover, on 2 Dec. 1847. Jacob wrote two novels, The Monk and the Vine-Dresser (1809) and Old Times and New (1812). A third publication, Feeling, is named on the title page of her Poems (1821) but has not been identified. (ancestry.co.uk 8 Apr. 2021, 16 July 2026; Hampshire Chronicle 2 Nov. 1772, 7 June 1790; EN@; RPW; findmypast.co.uk 16 July 2026) SR
Other Names:
- Mrs. Jacob